Srbija, moja ljubav

Drowsily we pile out of the bus and hand our passports over to the Hungarian policemen.

It´s 5:20am Friday morning and we´re crossing the border to Serbia. I´m the only German on the bus, along with me there´s only about 20 Serbians and Sinti and Roma in the crowd of bus people. We´re not that many, it´s a weekday and the bus is quite empty. When we´re back in the bus, several men come upstairs and ask in Serbian blahblahblahkomputerblahblahdiesdas? My limited Serbian skills (I was so proud I could ask for the toilet key in Serbian before! But that’s about where my language proficiency starts and ends) tell me they´re asking for goods to declare. Inwardly I slump together and hope they won´t take offence in my laptop that´s sticking ominously out of my rucksack at my feet.

One hour later everything seems to be fine and we´re back on our way through the early morning drizzle while the sky turns from nightly black to a morning grey.  Nearly 14 hours we´ve already been on this bus, travelling the hard way from Berlin to Serbia. 14 hours of Serbian music from the loudspeakers above me – nonstop. It says a lot about the Serbian psyche that there´s only – and 100% only – Serbian music and nothing else. That would never happen in a German bus. But maybe that says just as much about the German psyche.

I´m on the way to visit my muž for the weekend after German visa regulations have separated us in October. Ever since then there´s been a lot of whatsapping, skyping and missing each other, being frustrated at being apart and hoping everything will go as smoothly as possible with the embassy and Ausländeramt for the visa to process.  Now it feels our seeing each other is completely overdue (5 weeks, if you ask me) and finally I get to be in the arms of me betrothed one. Happily and completely worry-free  apart from my aching back from sleeping in various positions I munch away on my packed breakfast and watch the vast fields of freshly digged up brown earth pass by.

Upon arrival: The obligatory big bags of Imported black market Goods that Contain large quantities of Who knows What

Fast forward:  It´s Tuesday and I´m sitting in the lounge of Nikola Tesla Airport outside Belgrade. Like always, even this short time was worth every minute of it. Behind me lie four wonderful mornings of waking up in the arms of my love, four great days spent alternating between the warm and cozy bed while the rain is drumming hard against the window, hanging out in the kitchen with my new Serbian mother-in-law who always seems to have something new awesome cooking or ready in the fridge, going for walks through town arm in arm in the fresh and crisp winter air, watching Serbian and girly movies and generally just revelling in the feeling of loving and being loved in return.

But since this is a travel blog I would also like to not only rub into your face on how happy I am (grin) but also tell you some stuff about Serbia so you can get a better image of my new second home country.

First of all: I know nobody knows anything about Serbia. Help me, I didn´t know anything about it when I first met Sofija, my roommate to be, one year and three months ago. Serbia is not big and no, it´s not Siberia, that´s a bit of a different story. Siberia: cold. Serbia: part of Balkan (Balkan! Turbo-folk! Cevapi! Turkish coffee!) and not colder than we know from Germany. Serbians are hot-tempered and fiercely patriotic even when they know there´s not much country-wise to be proud of (uh, I hope I´m not leaning out of the window too much by saying this, correct me if I´m wrong). So instead, they are proud of their sports, where they are admittedly very good at. We´re not only talking one sports here but winning and internationally renowned basketball, tennis, waterpolo and whatnot. Ask any Serb and he´ll be able to tell you all the winner´s results of the last decades in no time.

Talking about food: The country mainly runs on Rakija, Ajvar, Plasma shake, and Yoghurt drink. There´s meat in every shape and variety, of course. Their vines are getting more national and international attention, too. I know I´ve written about Serbian cuisine before and some of you have already gotten a bite to try but I need to tell you this story just so you can get a deeper insight of why I love it so much:

Saturday, we went to visit his grandparents in the countryside. Serbian rustic village life! You can imagine how excited I was! We got picked up by his granddad in his old Yugo – the officially shittiest car in the world without servo and anything, it´s basically a Jugoslavian Trabi and I´m not even underestimating and I already LOVED it. We drove fifteen minutes outside Krusevac and found ourselves in pot-holed rainy little Mdingsdavillage, the incarnation of rustic. There´s goose and chicken roaming the courtyards, the houses look like in the old GDR (mom says. I wouldn´t know) and have this run-down charm that makes me instantly feel at home. So is their little Farmhouse-combination we arrive at now.

The granny who greets us is great, looks like one might imagine a Serbian or Russian granny with headscarf, long skirt and a natural easygoing openness that me as a German who is used to initial awkwardness when meeting new people finds very nice. She puts Kifle in the wood-fired oven, we are given some strong Turkish-style coffee and then shoved out for a village cruise in the Yugo. Husband is delighted (Yugo! You know how to drive this, you can drive anything) and me too at the unknown surroundings. After all, I get to drive it, too. I´m not doing too bad until we reach the driveway where I nearly roll back in the ditch on the other side of the road with the grandpa watching from the door.

After a farm tour (happy stinky cows and pigs and apparently old, old vines, a sort that is so natural and unchanged that it only grows there and that´s it but I don´t get to see because of the heavy rain) we are being fed a delicious Serbian feast. The grandma staples up lots of homemade delicacies in front of us, still fresh and warm from the oven. Smoked pig medallions, pickled cucumber and cauliflower, Milebrod (a soft and sticky flower-shaped bread bun), Kifle (same bread, filled with cheese, in croissant-form), old-type cherry pie that seems to be crispy fried rolled crepe filled with cherries and walnuts, accompanied by regional wine and strong green self-made Rakija from young walnut fruits. I am in seventh heaven.

After that we watch some Serbia´s got Talent or something show on TV before it´s time to say goodbye and the uncle drives us back to town.

Kruševac. Kruševac itself is such a cosy town, it´s really grown to my heart. The Gajić family house

View from the Terrace

is only a short walk away from the family dentist clinic through the little park where there´s parts of the old city wall and a church, both dating back to the 13th century and the latter in a unique mixed architectural style that can only be found here and in one or two other places if I remember it right.

After that, you reach the central street that has a few shops along the sides and restaurants and bars in the bordering ulice, pass by the all-over-watching angel statue

and the big building that contains Duomo night club in it (went there once and loved the music and watching the Barbie-like-dressed-up Serbian girls but finding the arrangement quite odd where there´s no dance floor or circulating around the club but you book a table in advance or know someone who has one and then you stand there all night and dance around it).

If you turn left, you´ll find yourself face to face to the clinic that´s one of the oldest and most respected ones in town having been there over 30 years now. In fact, everybody knows it: The taxi driver that was supposed to drop me off at the bus stop on the way here actually brought me right to the front step when I told him Gajić ordinacija, and when I told him moj muž is working there HE KNEW WHO I WAS. How funny is that.

Upon turning right form the main street you get onto the bar and café pedestrian street where in the day people drink coffee and eat cake, and in the night dolled-up girls and guys walk along going to the next bar or club until at 1am the music is turned down everywhere apart Duomo. So when you go down there, and then turn left at the little bakery hut at about half the street, near Vienna Insurance, you reach Moment, the Pizzeria/Bar where everybody Filip and Sofija know hang out.

When we enter Saturday night, Ana, one of Sofija´s best old friends who also visited us last New Year´s in Berlin and whose parents own the place, starts yelling “Anneeee!” and jumps up to hug me. It´s a lovely crowd that has openly accepted me right from the start and I always feel nice and perfectly comfortable hanging out there with Filip and everyone else.

Watch here for a nice video-walk around Krusevac in summer:

One last thing I have to share here with you that I find  endlessly charming is how Serbians serbianify everything from food to international celebrity names. Pizza is in Serbian Pica (because the “c” is pronounced as “ts” so that makes a reasonable Pizza I guess), Angelina Jolie becomes  Anđelina Džoli (Andschelina Dscholie), there´s Bil Klinton  and so on and so forth. Hihi.

Ah, you Serbians, I really like you.